


and set his table ready

by orphan_account



Series: said the spider to the fly [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Extremely Dubious Consent, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Other, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 13:35:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11556273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He’d fallen asleep in the archives.Neveradvisable, he’s reasonably sure, but usually… nominally safe. This is the first time he’s woken up likethis, at least.





	and set his table ready

**Author's Note:**

> uh.
> 
> anyway shout-out to MAG74 for inspiring me to finish this and such

He’d fallen asleep in the archives.

Never _advisable_ , he’s reasonably sure, but usually… nominally safe. This is the first time he’s woken up like _this_ , at least. Where ‘this’ is…

Well. He’s reasonably certain the things holding him up and keeping him in place and squirming unsettlingly under the fabric of his clothing would best be described as tentacles.

(to say nothing of the fact that Michael has gotten in here again, and him - it? - standing and smiling beatifically up at Jonathan at a time like this is several times _more_ unsettling than the business with the corridors)

“This is—” His voice cracks, mouth too dry for it, and he has to swallow a few times before he can try again. “This is a dream.”

Michael cocks its head slowly at that, smile stretching wider (too wide).

“Oh,” it says, all-too-cheerful. “Do you dream about this sort of thing _often_ , Archivist?”

“What!? No!”

The denial makes Michael laugh - that unsettling, ringing thing that echoes in his ears for too long - and un-cock its head again. Not the thing that draws most of Jonathan’s attention at that exact moment, admittedly, because that’s when the tentacles under his clothes decide to squirm rather _further_ under his clothes, and he’d had a bad feeling about this from the start but now his bad feeling is starting to develop a bad feeling about this.

A bad feeling that’s only solidified when the things pulse against his skin and then rip back with enough force that he’s left with rather a lot less clothing, a hell of a lot less dignity, and painful spots across his body where some of the fabric had dug in before it finally gave in and tore. His noises of protest being drowned out - somehow, despite the relative volumes - by Michael’s quiet, humming laughter doesn’t help the dignity part.

(neither does its eyes roving over the scars from Prentiss’ attack, and the way it looks positively _fascinated_ by them)

“Why are you _doing_ this? _What_ are you doing?” he manages to grind out, and gets a slow blink for his troubles.

“…those are questions,” it acknowledges after a few moments. It doesn’t seem inclined to add anything beyond that.

Faced with Michael’s unhelpfulness, coupled with the… _distracting_ presence of the tentacles, he’s left floundering for a second, unsure what to do; should he shout for one of the others (embarrassing if they’re even here, which none of them are likely to be)? Should he attempt to get free (unlikely to work, given the thick, muscular quality of the things; more like the coils of a snake than any natural kind of tentacles)? Should he try to question Michael further, and see if it’s more talkative in any other area (but what the hell would he ask it)?

Before he can settle on any kind of action, though, one of the tentacles shoves itself up against his mouth without warning, and he doesn’t have time to clamp it shut before the thing is forcing itself inside and filling his mouth. His attempt to bite it just jars his teeth uncomfortably, as though he’s bitten into something much harder than the tentacle actually feels, and makes Michael laugh.

Within moments of getting inside his mouth, the thing starts to leak a thin, sweet-tasting fluid that seeps from every pore of it, filling his mouth quickly. A fluid which he clearly shouldn’t ingest for so many reasons, from a tentacle that’s definitely not thick enough to prevent it from leaking out of the corners of his mouth if he refuses to swallow, and while Michael smiles up at him in a way that would look encouraging on any other face but probably ought to be triggering a fight-or-flight reflex when it’s on this one.

He swallows.

Almost instantly things get… harder to follow. His thoughts skitter and slide away from him when he tries to grasp them, more and more the more he swallows of the ever-seeping liquid. He’s aware of the tentacles moving across his skin, smooth and slick, leaving his skin damp and tingling wherever they touch. Aware of one pressed up inside of him, thick and squirming, though he doesn’t remember the process of that happening. Aware of Michael smiling up at him, shark-like somehow, and of his nose sluggishly dripping blood onto the surface of the tentacle in his mouth.

(every time he closes his eyes he sees fractals behind his eyelids)

He doesn’t know how long he spends hanging there, the tentacles stroking over him in soft, lazy passes. Doesn’t know how long he spends with Michael stood there in front of him, smiling away and with its head cocked ever-so-slightly, like the noises Jonathan is making around the tentacle in his mouth are the most exquisite music.

Doesn’t know how many times the things touching him make him come, only that Michael shivers and hums delightedly every time; that each time the pleasure builds and builds and whites out his vision and leaves Michael’s hum the only thing his senses can fully process, when the sensation becomes too much and drowns out everything else, from the sickly-sweet taste of the fluid to the touch itself to the way that Michael’s shivers are more an odd undulation of its form than anything _human_.

He doesn’t know those, the ‘how long’ or the ‘how many times’. He knows that when he’s lowered to the floor he feels wrung out and exhausted, that when the tentacle inside of him slides itself out and leaves him unbearably empty he tries to protest, that when the ones holding his arms and the one inside his mouth pull away he tries to reach for them. Knows that Michael reaches out and strokes his cheek in a way that would be a soothing motion from a human, and that its hand is too hard and too sharp and that it’s uncomfortable to lean his head against the touch but that he does so anyway, staring up at Michael’s blurry form.

He doesn’t know when his glasses came off but he thinks it might be better right now, to not see Michael so clearly.

“Don’t worry, Archivist,” Michael says softly, and the words sound almost like its laugh; like it’s speaking too quietly to hear but someone has turned up the volume, in a way that feels as though it’s happening only for Jonathan’s ears. “I think I will most _certainly_ be paying you another visit soon.”

(that should be terrifying, not reassuring, and yet—)

It pulls the hand away from his face, then, and instead lowers it to his chest, over his heart. Hovers its hand there in a way that makes even Jonathan’s sluggish, addled brain sit up and take notice and start to manage something like panic, and then only laughs to itself and runs its finger over his chest in an x-shape above his heart that leaves thin, bleeding cuts behind.

“‘X marks the spot’, doesn’t it?” it says to him, smile too wide, “And this is a spot I plan to remember, Archivist.”

It reaches up to pat his head after that - a painful contact that he leans into anyway, not in enough possession of his thoughts yet to do otherwise - and then urges him to sleep. Doesn’t say it, or really indicate it any way, but he knows that that’s what it wants and he’s only just beginning to remember that doing what Michael wants is probably a terrible idea, not close enough to proper functional consciousness yet to not do it anyway. So when it reaches out to hold onto him he lets it, and lets his eyes shut, and doesn’t process anything after that.

When he comes to he’s in his usual chair, clothes untouched and glasses still on his face, but there are echoes of fading fractals behind his eyelids and he can feel the burning sensation of cuts on his chest, the uncomfortable pull of fabric stuck to dried blood. He doesn’t need to swipe his hand under his nose to know that it’ll come away with a swipe of dried blood too - although he does so, and it does. Not enough evidence to be completely verifiable up to his standards for statements, but definitely…

Well. It happened, he’s certain of that.

(he’d like to say he makes an effort to not fall asleep in the archives after that, that he attempts at least that measure of protecting himself from Michael, but he’s not so much in the business of lying to himself these days)


End file.
